Comparison: Currents, Flipboard, Zaker and Zite

Google released a new product Google Currents after purchased Flipboard. Some people think it will give small publications opportunity. But, after two days trial, ITGeeg don’t think Google Currents is a successful product which will makes big difference to the market.

Default Interface

Google Currents

Flipboard

Zaker

Zite

Bad design. Just one news is shown on the first page.

Beautiful thumbnail design let user have a quick idea about the details.

Metro style and display most recently items.

The best reading experience as it display the content with pictures.

Interface After One Click

Google Currents

Flipboard

Zaker

Zite

No content. Just a list.

Content!
elegant design

Content!
very like a newspaper

Content!
integrated different content sources

2 clicks after, Google Currents finally display the real content. It’s very like the Newsstand. This is not so convenient for reading. www.itgeeg.com

Currents offer search function. In the future, small publications may get traffic from keywords search. However, it’s not so optimistic that they will get big traffic as the list is still arranged by the number of subscriber.

The result is show below:

Most subscribers are gathered by the first 3 publications. This means small publications may not able to get big traffic from Google Currents. However, as Currents is just release, there are still chances for Google to make improvement.

Shortcomings:

The big picture on its head delivers few information but hold half place.

The news gallery didn’t deliver much information. Users need to click it to enter the source.

The assortment of sources makes it difficult to get a full content on a specific product.

Above all, Google Currents is a bad product. Hope the Google Currents be improved in the future.